Perdido 03

Friday, February 14, 2014

What The UFT Should Do Over Snow Day Debacle

What are the UFT and other school worker unions going to do about making us whole?

What the unions should be demanding now is that people who made it in
should be given an extra day in their sick banks and those who stayed
out should not have a day deducted from their sick banks for missing
school.

Alas, I doubt very much the UFT leadership will make these demands.

But I have another idea on how the UFT leadership can make us whole on this.

Since the official Carmen Farina policy is to keep NYC schools opened so long as Macy's is opened, we should get a 20% discount at any Macy's store.

If the measure of whether NYC schools stay open or not is whether Macy's is open or not, that kinda makes us unofficial Macy's employees and arguably eligible for the employee discount at the store.

6 comments:

As much as I despise what the UFT has been up to in recent years, I must say that there should be no "position" for it to take. We are civil service workers and are expected to show up to work. That is part of the job. We all have 10 sick days that include 3 personal days. If you can't make it to school, use the day from your bank. Bitching about it will not change anything nor should it. Nobody forces anyone to live in Long Island or New Jersey. I live 35 miles from school and I made sure that I moved near a train station so I could make it in on snow days. That is just part of the job. And please note, I am not some TFA wonderkid or charter douchebag. I have 18 years in the system.

I disagree. The job of the union is to protect its members. It has the responsibility to take a "position" on something like leaving schools opened during a 10 inch snow storm. Doing so put both children and educators at risk, which is why both Logan and Mulgrew issued a press release (though to be fair, they were pretty gentle in that release.)

Mostly though, keeping schools opened put both de Blasio and Farina at risk - the mayor now has the reputation for being short-sighted and in over his head and Farina has the reputation for being clueless and delusional. Heard that from civilians without kids in the system who happened to see the press conference. One told me that Farina sounded like, and I quote, "an idiot."

So in the end, this will hurt the people who made the decision the most - and believe me, both de Blasio and Farina know that after getting beaten up in the press and on social media for the last two days.